"The superior man is catholic and no partizan. The mean man is a partizan and not catholic." (君子周而不比、小人比而不周。) ─ Confucius, The Analects, 2.XIV, translation by James Legge.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Justin Raimondo on the Border

"The US-Mexican border is just as porous as ever, and any attempt to seal it is denounced as 'racist' and the equivalent of setting up a 'police state,'" notes the Antiwar.com editor — South of the Border. He continues:

While I don’t approve of the recent legislation passed by the Arizona state legislature, which empowers police to check anyone who might "reasonably" suspected of being in the country illegally, opponents of the bill – particularly the professional victimologists and weepy-eyed liberals – refuse to recognize that the effort was spawned, not by hate but by the rising violence of a nearly-failed state – Mexico – which is seeping across the border and threatens to become a torrent of criminality and chaos.

What I would like to know is this: what country on earth fails to guard its borders this way? We are often told by liberals and "progressives" that the US needs to be more like Europe, with cradle-to-grave security and government-run health care, but what about when it comes to immigration? Precisely because the Europeans have extensive welfare states, the demand to see "Your papers, please" is a common request made by law enforcement agencies in those countries. And no one would think of questioning their right to do so.

An estimated six million illegal immigrants have flooded the US in recent years – in sheer quantitative terms, this represents the biggest single threat to our national security. And yet the merest suggestion that something ought to be done about it is met with cries of outrage by the liberal media and the usual suspects, i.e. the Big Business lobby, which thrives on a pool of unlimited cheap labor, the "La Raza" crowd, which is basically arguing for a policy of open borders, and the Roman Catholic Church, which seeks to replenish its fast-emptying churches with a fresh crop of congregants.

That last jibe against the Faith that Mr. Raimondo was born into, I'm afraid, has a kernal of truth.

Reminding his readers that "we’re expending tremendous resources in trying to introduce some sort of order to the wilds of Afghanistan," Mr. Raimondo suggests that we "stop trying to protect Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan and start protecting our own border with Mexico." He concludes, "Our government is so busy carrying out tasks it has no constitutional authority to involve itself in that it has no time, energy, or interest in doing what it is supposed to be doing, in this case protecting the physical safety of American citizens."

5 Comments:

ben said...

I have to disagree with you here Joshua. The US-Mexico broder has a long and complicated history and the solutions are by no means simple. Comprehensive reform is a necessity and must contian several elements. First, in immigration policy the respect for the intergrty of the family and the natural rights for family members to live together must be respected as an absolute value; second, the duty of the wealthier nation to the poorer one must be acknowledged; and third, Mexico has a duty to help resolve this problem, which it had a part in creating for its neighbor. They must assist the US with the execution of a just immigration policy.

I think most of our bishops are in favor of a policy that would address these points. No one is for absolutely open borders, and no one is for the status quo.

To address the problem, a path to legal status for persons already here must not be overly burdensome.

Finally, we must acknowledge that our execution of 1/3 of those concieved since 1973 has largely caused the labor shortage that has draw so many immigrants here in the first place.

The borders were settled sufficiently long ago, and provisions have long been in place for those very very few families that might still be adversely affected by when those borders were settled upon.

Integrity of the family is the sugar that leads otherwise sensible people to swallow the poison of the leviathan state.

A leviathan state where its most notable characteristic is that its citizens are nomads where their landmarks are identical replicants of mass merchandising spread across the landscape.

The borders are one of the last vestiges of civilized society in the U.S., and one of the most important because every society first stakes out its land, and when it can't even recognize its own land, it is forever lost to invasion by those who are not its own.

Ben writes : "Finally, we must acknowledge that our execution of 1/3 of those concieved since 1973 has largely caused the labor shortage that has draw so many immigrants here in the first place."

There isn't a labor shortage, what we have is imported labor which undercuts living wage pricing. It's no different than exporting labor to cheap overseas markets. And both are done for the same reason.

the Roman Catholic Church, which seeks to replenish its fast-emptying churches with a fresh crop of congregants.

While the Roman Catholic Church advertises itself as a church of the poor, that isn't always reality. American bishops aren't really interested in filling their pews with those that demand the sacraments and can hardly put a $1 in the collection plate on Sunday. In my area, it is downright scandalous the lack of resources available for the Spanish faithful.